The Empathy Exams

by Leslie Jamison

In a 1979 op-ed called “In Defense of Sentimentality,” John Irving examines the legacy of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, stressing the importance of what he calls “Christmas risks”: earnest attempts to articulate pathos without cloaking it in cleverness or wit. In another “In Defense of Sentimentality,” philosopher Robert Solomon responds to thinkers like Jefferson and Tanner, teasing out the differences between distinct critiques of sentimentality that often get lumped into a single campaign. Is the problem of sentimentality primarily ethical or aesthetic? Solomon paraphrases Tanner’s argument that “sentimental people indulge their feelings instead of doing what should be done” and cites the example of Nazi commander Rudolf Hoess, who wept at an opera staged by concentration camp prisoners. Perhaps this wasn’t simply ironic but actually causal: His sentimental experience was an escape valve releasing pressure that should have been troubling his conscience.